Finally

After about 7 months of no laptop, I told my husband that all I wanted for Christmas was for it to be fixed. He took into a place that was recomended to him by someone at work. They held it hostage for about a month or more.

They installed a new hard drive, I don’t think the Fn buttons work but I can hopefully figure that one out. They said the little rubber legs had fallen off the bottom (well two of them had) so the computer overheated and fried the hard drive. All that because of two rubber legs. I lost all of our Disney pictures because of two little pieces of rubber.

But I finally have my computer back. Now to get as much back on it as I can.

Christmas At Our House

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Originally uploaded by polarpegs.

I have mentioned before how great it was to have all of us at our place on the 28. Here is the proof. These are all the neices and nephews under 18 except for 2 in Ontario. I am glad they will have this memory. It doesn’t happen all that often.

Now that Christmas Is Over

WOW! It is hard to believe that the Season is almost over and the kids will be heading back to school in a couple more sleeps. We are already almost a full week into 2007 and it is true that time really does not stop for anyone.

Well this may be long over due but I thought I would post it anyway…

High-Lites of the Holiday
- Noah and Mykayla performing publicly for the first time on their own. Solo!
- Being able to attend one School Christmas Concert and see all of our kids take part in their own way. This has never been done before because Taylor has always attended a different school from the other two.
- Taking part in the Christmas Eve Service at our church.
- Spending Christmas Eve with my cousin and his family. Not being able to spend these times with him growing up made this a really special time of feeling a part of a family on Christmas Eve.
- Spending Christmas Eve just the 5 of us reading the Christmas Story from the Bible and praying together.
- Our traditional Belgium Waffle Breakfast
- Having my sister and her husband and 5 kids here on Christmas Day
- Hosting our first ever Christmas Dinner in our new home. Complete with my parents and sister and 5 children.
- Seeing the kids be so thankful and excited over every gift no matter how large or small.
- Having my sister Joan and her husband Dean show up at our place with their two adorable kids on the 28 for a birthday supper.
- Having my sister Kristina and her son Cabot come for supper on the 28.
- Knowing that the evening would be one for all of our children to remember with their cousins.
- Getting pictures of all four girls with our mom. The first time in over 12 years we were all together and didn’t even get into an argument.
- Mykayla got to spend a day at a seminar figure skating with Jeffrey Buttle. She also got her picture taken with him and his autograph.
- After the family left – much rest and relaxation
- Spending New Year’s Eve celebrating with my kids and my folks
- Having Trevor come in to have birthday cake on the evening of the 1st.
- Noah’s team winning their game on the 2nd
- Taylor got to go spend the day quadding with his cousins in Shellbrook.
- Taylor finally won a game! The beat St. Louis 6-1 on Thursday. A great way for them to start the New Year. He got the “Hardest Worker Award” He has a hard hat to sign his name on and a pair of fluorescent orange work boots that the make them wear out of the dressing room. He wore them with pride. He will return it tomorrow for someone else to use.
- Celebrating my mom’s 65th birthday with her today. Her dear friend Irene threw her a surprise party at their house. It was a wonderful time with just the right amount of people.

And Now the Low-Lites
~ Getting sick right before Christmas and not really feeling good until after Christmas.
~ The kids waking up at 4am on Christmas Morning and then Trevor waking me up at 6am and getting into an argument because the kids had fallen back to sleep and I wanted to sleep longer as well.
~ My sister Kristina not wanting to celebrate Christmas Day with the rest of the family.
~ Trevor having to go back to work on the 26 and being really anxious to get back there.
~ Having to say good-bye to my sisters and their families much too soon.
~ Fighting with my mother.
~ Spending New Year’s without my husband and my friends back in Yellowknife.
~ Having my mom’s birthday and having three of her oldest friends unable to attend.

Embarassing Moments – The Damage We Do To Our Kids

When I was young (about 3 or 4 years old) I did something that was fairly innocent but embarrassing. My mom made a huge deal about it and does to this day. She laughs about it every time she tells the story. Which she still does to this day. I guess to her it was cute, to me it was sheer embarrassment and still is to this day. When I got married it might have made a cute bride’s story to tell but I refused to let anyone mention it (upon threat of being excommunicated from my wedding and my life.) Every time my mom has told that story or even made mention of it, she laughs and I feel that she is laughing at me. I see absolutely no humour in it. To me it is a story told and recounted to humiliate me.

My oldest son is not much different from I. He has some embarrassing stories. Trevor says he is collecting all the stories for each of the kids for their wedding days so he can humiliate them on their big day. Taylor and I have come to an agreement that if there are certain stories, no matter how cute or innocent they may seem to me, that he finds embarrassing, I will not recount the story to anyone. And I think I have made it pretty clear that his father is not aloud to either, no matter what he might threaten or joke about.

The other day with the whole family here (except Trevor, and I was not in the room at the time) Taylor was joking around with his uncle. He did something that after a moment he found very embarrassing. He burst into tears and ran to the bathroom. My sister had even taken pictures of this moment and someone joked about telling his dad. That was when Taylor burst. I guess the thought of his dad having that information was too much. After several moments of my sister talking to him through the bathroom door, I came down the stairs and realized what had taken place. We got Tay out of the bathroom and my sister wisely promised to delete the pictures off the camera and my family in their wisdom knew to all promise they would not talk of it again.

I am proud of my sisters and brothers-in-law. They have learned wisely from my mother’s oversight. Sometimes a good or cute story is not that good or cute if it is at someone else’s (particularly a self-esteem fragile young boy) expense. I think the way this situation was handled will actually allow Taylor to one day hear the story as a man and laugh at it. He may even let them tell it at his wedding. They showed me respect at my wedding by not telling “my embarrassing moment” and they showed Taylor respect by protecting his embarrassing moment as well.

Christmas Cards

For those of you who know my husband you may also know that I tease him that he doesn’t know how to read. It is not that he doesn’t know how (after all he did graduate the top of his class at Montana Tech) he just doesn’t enjoy it the way some people do. In fact he avoids as much as he can especially if it is reading out loud.

If you read his blog you may also know that he is pretty funny and witty most of the time. In fact I often get frustrated because there are times when I wish he would take some things more seriously.

Well Christmas came this year and we did the usual exchange of gifts and for some reason Trev and I have always exchanged Christmas cards. My family never did but it is something we did when we first got married because we didn’t have much money but a card was usually affordable. This year whoever was in the greeting card business managed to write a card that my husband managed to find for me. When I read it I knew that this card spoke the words for Trev in a way he has seldom been able to.

So because I was so touched by it, I thought I would share it here.

For My Wife
With All My Love

Even after all this time
and all that we’ve been through,
I still have trouble finding ways
to show my love for you.
I wish I were the kind of man
who’s good at thinking of
romantic little gestures
and poetic words of love.

But the plain and simple truth is,
I’m an ordinary guy
who’s happy you still love me-
though I sometimes wonder why.
Just know I really care for you
in my own quiet way,
and in my heart,
I give you roses every single day.

Merry Christmas

I love you too Trevor

This Sucks

Uggh.

Just when I thought I was on the mend. I have been on the antibiotics for over a week now. It was okay over the weekend and then Monday came and Trev and I were doing some shopping. I got a huge headache and by the time I got home I had to go to bed and I slept for 5 hours from about 2pm – 7pm. Tuesday night I couldn’t get to sleep until about 4am and Wednesday I was tired. Now my throat started hurting again and last night I think I started to get a fever again. I woke up at 5 am because again I could hardly swallow and my throat has been scratchy, dry and sore. I was so stuffed up I was gagging so I went and slept on the lazyboys. I fell asleep at around 6 and my wonderful husband once again came through by getting the kids up and off to school and left me to sleep all morning.

This isn’t good. I have baking to do, cabbage rolls to make, friends to visit and just generally relaxing with my family to do. School is finally done for the holiday and Trev has taken the kids to the rink. I want to clean my house but I just don’t have the energy.

Yuck Yuck Yuck

Sunday December Third

Sunday. Yes it was days ago. It has been a busy week. It is done now. We have drum lessons afterschool today and then nothing all weekend except a hockey game in Shellbrook which should be a nice drive out.

Sunday was Mykayla’s 8th birthday. Our first big event as a family here in PA. We slept in and the boys gave Myk her present from them. They didn’t want to go to church but I said that we needed to go for 11 because I had to work in the nursery. We arrived at about 10:30 and then I checked the board and I was scheduled to work at 10. Oops. So we left after church and went to Taylor’s hockey game. They lost horribly and young Mr. Herd got a stern warning about what I would do with his stick if he banged it again. Then we went home to decorate the birthday cake and practice for the afternoon Family Advent Service.

We were asked the week before if there was anything we would like to do for the service. I asked the kids and Myk said she would like to sing and Noah said he would like to read. Mykayla decided on Silent Night and I found a poem called Advent Beauty for Noah. We found some piano music for Myk to sing to.

Noah reading Advent Beauty by John Piper. Before Noah went up to read his poem , Taylor said to him, “Noah, if you are nervous just picture everyone in their underwear.”

Noah gave him a strange look like he was suggesting something obscene.

After he was finished and we were getting ready to leave, Taylor asked him, “Noah, did you picture everyone in their underwear?”

Noah’s response, with a very smug look on his face, “Nope, I pictured them naked.”

I see a future as a stand up comedian.Mykayla sang Silent Night. She lost her timing slightly near the end but by the end of the song she had regained it.

She did great for her first time and very little practice.

We are so proud of her for being so brave, getting up there and doing what she loves to do. They are already practicing for next year. I think the three of them may do a rendition of Little Drummer Boy with Taylor playing the drum.
Mykayla completely decorated her own cake this year. She helped bake it as well. She is growing up so fast.We were blessed to meet the Oleksyns when we first moved here. Marilyn has two children Austin and Bailey. They have just moved back from Toronto as Marilyn grew up here. Austin plays hockey with Taylor and Bailey skates with Myk. As two single moms (well half the time for me) it has been great to have this friendship where we can get together at the arenas and trade off children and no matter where we are our kids have each other to play with. The Oleksyns joined us for cake that evening and Bailey is seated next to Mykayla as she blows out her candle.

Advent Beauty

By John Piper November 28, 1982

Tilting on her yearly track
Advent beauty circles back,
Flying faster with the years,
Hardly giving time for tears
First to dry upon the cheek—
Has it been more than a week
In the ground now winter cold?
Has there really been a spring
When the birds began to sing?
Has there been both summer, fall
Since the Baby in the stall
Called us with a Christmas bell
to sing, O Come, Immanuel?
Tilting on her yearly track
Advent beauty circles back,
Flying faster with the years—
Ah, but overtaking fears.
Let the Lord of advent lift
Every care (an early gift!);
See the Savior and the Son
Shine in advent candle one.